The perfect draft

I’ve had enough writing about Jay Cutler. It’s time to move on to other subjects. And as this is going to be my longest post in a while, I hope I can hold your interest.

First, I’ll admit I got the idea for this post from a wonderful article written by Joe Posnanski about the Kansas City Royals disastrous 1999 draft. I understand the idea has since been copied by a number of writers – some of whom haven’t even bothered to acknowledge in print that they got the idea from Posnanski. Well, that won’t be happening here. Joe Posnanski – Grant’s Tomb thanks you for this brilliant idea it’s about to borrow.

Now let’s get down to business. With the Vikings showing no interest in re-signing offensive tackle Marcus Johnson (and with good reason), big Marcus’s departure (update: ESPN reports Johnson has signed with Oakland) closes a sad chapter in Minnesota Vikings history, one that fans of the team hope won’t ever be repeated – the 2005 NFL draft.

The Vikings had seven picks in this draft – including two in the first round – and whiffed on six of them. And even the one half-way decent player the Vikings did select, they ended up trading in 2006 for a weak-armed, career backup quarterback that got cut at the end of the 2008 training camp. So really, the Vikings did not select a player in the 2005 draft that contributed to the team in any meaningful way. This is hard to do, even if you were trying to do it, which, I assume, the Vikings weren’t.

But what if the Vikings had a perfect draft in 2005? What would that draft look like?

I’ll get into all that, but first – for context - let’s take a brief look at the Vikings roster as the 2004 season ended and assess what the team’s needs were heading into the draft.

As you probably remember, the Vikings made the playoffs in 2004. They even won a game before bowing out to the eventual NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles. But they made the playoffs with a ho-hum 8-8 record and then traded their best player, Randy Moss, in March to Oakland for Napoleon Harris, the seventh overall pick and a seventh round pick in the 2005 draft. The Vikings already had plenty of needs heading into the draft despite the playoff appearance. The Moss trade created another one.

As for those other needs, it’s clear the Vikes needed offensive line help. Chris Liwienski was the starting left guard, David Dixon had been the starter at right guard, but would retire at the end of the season, and Mike Rosenthal and Nat Dorsey were the options at right tackle. The defensive line was another concern, both at tackle and end. Chris Hovan was completely ineffective in 2004 and would be allowed to walk that offseason. On the edges, Kenechi Udeze was the starting right end, but coming off a disappointing rookie season, and Kenny Mixon - more of a run stopping DE than anything (never more than five sacks in a season) – would be released in April, leaving an opening at left end.

But the needs didn’t end there. Linebacker and safety were problem areas, too. The only positions where the Vikings were fine were quarterback, tight end, running back (where the team had a deep, if not spectacular, group that included the S.O.D., Michael Bennett, Mewelde Moore and Moe Williams) and cornerback – manned at the time by Antoine Winfield and Brian Williams.

Now prior to the draft, the Vikings made some moves in free agency to address some of their weaknesses, with varying degrees of success. The purple smartly signed Pat Williams to replace Hovan at defensive tackle. They signed Darren Sharper away from Green Bay to replace Brian Russell at free safety. They even signed Travis Taylor, hoping he could emerge into an effective possession receiver next to their supposed new number one receiver, Nate Burleson.

So that’s where the Vikings stood when draft weekend arrived. And as Posnanski writes in the post linked above, what follows is what was and what might have been. (By the way, you can find every pick in the entire 2005 draft here at the Pro Football Reference site.)

Vikings first round pick (7th overall): wide receiver Troy Williamson
Could have been: linebacker DeMarcus Ware or linebacker Shawne Merriman

Comments: The Vikings had the right idea in the first round, they really did. They drafted a wide receiver and a pass rusher. But they got the order wrong. They should’ve went after a pass rusher with the seventh overall pick and a wide receiver with the 18th overall pick. Ware and Merriman were sitting right there, waiting to put on a Vikings jersey. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘But Ware and Merriman are linebackers in a 3-4 and have never lined up with a hand on the ground in the pros. The Vikings play a 4-3!’ And that’s true. But good players are good players. And Ware and Merriman were more than good players – they were (and still are) elite pass rushers. No matter where they play, they are going to put pressure on the quarterback. Both guys are also listed at 6’4 and over 260 pounds, so they’ve got the size to hold up as a defensive end. But you’re drafting them to get after the quarterback. Who cares if stopping the run isn’t exactly their forte?

Vikings additional first round pick (18th overall): defensive end Erasmus James
Could have been: wide receiver Roddy White

Comment: As I recall, the knock on James coming out of Wisconsin didn't have anything to do with talent but that he was injury prone. And, what do you know, once he got to the pros, he was injury prone. White also had doubters going into the draft. Some experts wondered whether he could translate his all-world numbers at Alabama-Birmingham to the pros. But given the choice between two players playing the same position, the lesson learned here is that you should probably select the guy who led the nation in receiving yards his senior season (White), but played against lesser competition, over the guy who could run fast but never caught more than 43 passes in a college season and had a tendency to allow passes to bounce off his chest plate (Williamson).

One other point: If the Vikings had picked White and Ware or Merriman in the first round, we would not care what they did with their remaining picks. They could have thrown them in the Hudson River at this point and still had a very successful draft. But they didn’t.

Vikings second round pick (49th overall): offensive lineman Marcus Johnson
Could have been: free safety Nick Collins

Comments: The Vikings have already signed Darren Sharper by the time they are about to make this pick, so why is selecting another free safety the right call when there are other needs (read: offensive line) to be addressed? Because the chance to add another playmaker in the defensive backfield cannot be passed up here and Collins has emerged into a damn good player. Besides, the Vikings can probably slide Collins over to strong safety, eliminating the need to sign Dwight “Stairwell” Smith in 2006. Plus, the Vikings get to address their offensive line problems in the third round.

Vikings third round pick (80th overall): defensive back Dustin Fox
Could have been: offensive tackle Nick Kaczur

Comments: This one is a tough call because Leroy Hill is available here and the Vikings have linebacker issues. But I’ll go with Kaczur considering what a black hole right tackle has been for the Vikings since the death of Korey Stringer. Kaczur’s no Pro Bowler. But he’s been a solid starter at tackle for four years on a Patriots team with a highly regarded offensive line. And he’s not Ryan Cook or Artis Hicks.

As for Fox, there should have been all kinds of red flags on him in the Vikings draft war room. Why? Because he’s white and his position at Ohio State was cornerback, that’s why. There aren’t many white cornerbacks in the NFL. At the end of the 2004 season there were ZERO white starting cornerbacks in the NFL. Jason Sehorn wasn’t even a first-stringer. Fox would not add to that number. To be fair, there was talk the Vikings might switch Fox over to safety. However, he broke his arm in training camp and was released by the Vikings the following year, having never played a down of football for them. You’ve got to do better with a third round pick than that.

Vikings fourth round pick (112th overall): running back Ciatrick Fason
Could have been: running back Darren Sproules

Comments: Another tough call here because, as I mentioned above, the Vikings have a crowded and relatively productive corps of running backs already in the fold (although the S.O.D. - Onterrio Smith – will get suspended for the 2005 season because of the Whizzinator thing). Plus, centre Jason Brown is still available. But you’re probably not looking for a successor to Matt Birk just yet, who is coming off his fourth Pro Bowl selection in five years, who will turn 28 during the 2005 training camp and who has four years left on his contract. And Sproules solves the Vikings problem of finding someone – anyone – who can capably return kick-offs and punts. Sproules would have provided the offence an extra 10-15 yards in field position everytime it trots onto the field - something the unit hasn't enjoyed for years because the punt and kick-off returners have stunk. And if you think that's a trivial matter, well, you haven't watched the Vikes offence much since 2005.

Vikings fifth round pick: The Vikings have no fifth round pick in 2005, but considering how they drafted, I don't think it really matters.

Vikings sixth round pick (191st overall): defensive tackle C.J. Mosley
Could have been: No one

Comments: Believe it or not, the Vikings made the right choice here. The best player in this round – by far – is tight end Bo Scaife. But the Tennessee Titans scooped him up 11 picks ago, so the Vikings draft a defensive tackle with some potential. Now we know Mosley has not turned into a star. He’s about to play for his third organization in five seasons. He has never been a starter anywhere he’s been and he’s never had more than three sacks in a season. But I have seen the odd game where Mosley’s been a factor - even a big factor. He can give you some quality play from time-to-time. And that’s more than I can say about the guy the Vikings traded Mosley for in 2006 – quarterback Brooks Bollinger. This is more evidence that the Vikings 2005 draft was cursed. Even when they got it right, they found a way to screw it up eventually.

Vikings seventh round pick (219th overall): defensive back Adrian Ward
Could have been: defensive tackle Jay Ratliff

Comments: Okay, I realize it’s a bit unfair to criticize the Vikings selections this late in the draft. By the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds, the draft becomes an even bigger crapshoot than the crapshoot it already is. You’re choosing very flawed players here, most of whom will never amount to a tinker’s damn. Only 12 of the 40 players picked in the seventh round in 2005 are still in the league and only one (Matt Cassel) has emerged into a potential impact player. Most of the time you’re taking a flier on a Rick Razzano (Tampa Bay; pick 221), or a Keyonta Marshall (Philadelphia; pick 247), or a Adrian Ward. Meanwhile, Ratliff has developed into a nice starting nose tackle for the Cowboys. Even had 7.5 sacks last year. You could call it a fluke, but Bill Parcells was shopping for the groceries in the 2005 draft and he got four starters - Ware, defensive end Marcus Spears, running back Marion Barber and Ratliff – plus backup linebacker Kevin Burnett in that draft. Parcells missed on his two picks in the sixth round (defensive back Justin Beriault and offensive lineman Rob Petitti), but so did a lot of other teams. Bottom line: Parcells drafted very well in 2005. He knew what he was doing. The Vikings, evidently, did not.

A couple of other things that merit mentioning about the 2005 draft. One of those things is the quarterback position. The Vikings passed on quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers (24th overall), Jason Campbell (25th overall), Derek Anderson (213th overall) and, of course, Cassel (230th overall). My perfect pick for the Vikings with the 18th overall pick is Roddy White instead of Rodgers and in the seventh round it's Ratliff, which must seem odd considering the Vikings predicament at quarterback these past few years. Why didn't I choose Rodgers or Cassel, two guys who threw for over 4,000 yards last year, instead of White and Ratliff?

The reason is that with each of these picks the Vikings should have made, I tried to pick good players while also taking into account the Vikes actual needs when they made these picks. Now you can argue a team can never have enough good quarterbacks, but in April 2005, I don’t think you can argue that quarterback was a weakness for the Vikings. In fact, it looked like the strongest position on the team.

It mostly looked that way because Daunte Culpepper was coming off one of the best years an NFL quarterback has ever had (Check out these numbers - 69.2 completion percentage, 4,717 passing yards, 39 TD passes, only 11 interceptions and he even ran for 406 yards and two TDs). And Culpepper had just turned 28. He was going to be the Vikings quarterback for the next six-to-eight years – maybe even longer. No one knew he was going to have his knee shredded seven games into the 2005 season and would never be the same. Also, no one had yet discovered what a disastrous effect not having Randy Moss to throw to would have on Culpepper’s effectiveness – even before he got injured.

Let’s also remember the Vikings had signed wily Brad Johnson in the offseason to serve as the capable veteran backup behind Culpepper. The third string guy – the young, developmental quarterback every team likes to have – was Shaun Hill. Maybe Hill’s no Cassel, but in 2005 he’s got no more and no less promise than Cassel or Anderson. And I’m not sold that Cassel will be anything more than a one-year wonder anyway, which I why I have the Vikings picking Ratliff. And with Rodgers, are you really going to pick a guy with the 18th overall pick when you expect he's going to back up Culpepper for the first six years of his career?

The other thing to note about this draft and every draft the Vikings had during the time Red McCombs owned the team is that there was no personnel man who made the final decision on whom the Vikings were drafting. Based on what I’ve read over the years, Red didn’t want to hire too many front office people, or scouts, or assistant coaches, because he wanted to keep costs down.

Okay, that’s not quite right. During Denny Green’s last few years as head coach, the Vikings did have one guy calling the shots on draft day – the Sheriff himself. But this is different than actually having a general manager or personnel guy in charge of all aspects of the draft. Having your head coach oversee the draft has not worked out well the majority of the time in the NFL. And it didn’t work out well for the Vikings. Green was so bad at it that the Vikings were playing, regularly, guys like Wasswa Serwanga and Robert Tate during the final years of his regime.

As for the Mike Tice years, the Vikings did not have one guy calling the shots on draft day, it was more like several guys. Again, my understanding is that Tice had some input (not a good thing), Scott Studwell had some input, scouts, assistant coaches, concession workers – they all had some input and then some kind of consensus was reached. The Vikings hit on some players with this approach, like Kevin Williams, but missed on plenty of others. Mostly, they didn’t seem to have a plan. Nor did they seem to know what kind of players they were looking for - the kind of thing good drafting GMs like Parcells, Ozzie Newsome and Bill Polian do. If you’re looking for a reason why the Vikings failed miserably in the 2005 draft, the Vikes draft process is probably the biggest culprit.

There is some hope this won't continue to happen. Say what you want about Vikings management now, but there’s a chain of command and Rick Spielman is the guy calling the shots on draft day. It may turn out that this isn’t a good thing because Spielman was very bad at this when he did it in Miami. But the Vikings seem to have a gameplan leading up to and during the draft now. They seem to know what kind of players that fit what they do and the drafts the past three seasons look quite a bit better than the Green/Tice drafts. So, there’s been some progress. I think. Although the whole handling of the Jay Cutler thing makes me wonder.

Now if the Vikings had that perfect draft in 2005, how different would the Vikings past four years have turned out? That’s always a tough call because of the variables at play. I don’t think the perfect draft would have made the Vikings a vastly better team in 2005. But in 2006, how would the extra juice a Ware or Merriman would have given the Vikings pass rush have helped? Would they have finished better than 6-10 and if so, do they still have the opportunity to select Adrian Peterson in the 2007 draft? How would Roddy White’s emergence in 2007 have improved a terrible Vikings passing game? Does that get them into the playoffs? Do the Vikings still trade three drafts picks for Jared Allen prior to the 2008 draft if they’ve already got Ware or Merriman on the roster? And if they don’t do that, would the Vikings have been less reluctant to trade away multiple picks this year to secure Cutler’s services? Lots to think about here and it's hard to know whether the Vikings would be better off or not.

What we do know is the 2005 draft was terrible. The sad thing is it didn't have to be.